4 By Tenn is 3 For Four at Spotlighters

SHOW INFORMATION: Through April 13. Fri & Sat at 8PM, Sun at 2PM.  Tickets are $18.00.  BWW Readers get $5.00 off per ticket at the box office or by ordering it online at www.spotlighters.org, clicking on TICKETS and entering code BWW-4T.  Information can be found at that website or by calling 410-752-1225/ 

◊◊◊ out of five.  2 hours, 15 minutes, including intermission.  Adult language, situations and sexuality. 

 

Recently, I was looking for something and came across a box of papers from college, including a (typewritten!) review – my first – of the Broadway musical Grind, which was trying out at the Lyric Opera House before New York.  It was so strange to look at that writing and compare it to today.  It made me smile and notice growth and some stubborn traits I still wrestle with!  I imagine that would be the feeling Tennessee Williams might have felt (were he alive) when four of his earliest plays surfaced in the recent past.  Those four one acts have been packaged as one evening of theatre called 4 By Tenn, and opened recently at Spotlighters Theatre under the direction of Barry Feinstein.  As one might expect, especially since these plays are presented "as is" and without benefit of rewrite or editing, that they are by turns rudimentary, immature and simple, but they are also quite fascinating. 

Each of the four deal head-on with personal issues of Williams', issues that were by necessity and artistic need veiled in his more famous works – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire come readily to mind.  But here they are in the forefront, boldly "out there" to readily offend or provoke thought.  Here, he deals with such personal feelings as awakening sexuality and his obsession with kissing girls, overcoming inner demons, suicide, drag queens, and death.  At Spotlighters, the evening is narrated by "The Writer" aka Tennessee who tells us formative anecdotes and personal revelations that sparked the birth of each play.  It is most helpful, both to those new to the world of Williams and those very familiar.  Connections and an inherent understanding are the result.  Played by Harry B. Turner, The Writer is a suave sophisticate with an intoxicating charm, a subversive sexuality and a boozy delivery.  His is a good performance that really helps the evening coalesce. 

The first play, "These are the Stairs You Got to Watch," is the most problematic.  It features a cast of ten, mostly unnecessary actors and a plot that is both thread thin and bizarre.  It is a movie usher's first day, and he is warned to keep an eye on the balcony stairs – they are forbidden.  Naturally, everyone and their brother tries to sneak up there.  The boy is played by Alex Joseph Barone with equal parts dumbstruck awe and bland passivity.  His trainer is played with blustery overstatement by Greg Freitag.  Subtlety is not this actor's strong suit, at least in this play.  Tracy Dye's Gladys gives the actress the opportunity to play wanton tramp, and she's not bad, considering the one-dimensionality of the character.  Branch Warfield is wasted in the role of cranky theatre owner, and Dickens Warfield offers the plays one almost bright spot, as the nagging, whiny cashier.  Not the writer's, cast's or show's best moment by far. 

The second play, "Summer at the Lake," shows us glimpses of heroines to come, and fairly oozes Southern charm and closed-mindedness.  Janise Whelan does a great job as aging Southern Belle, Mrs. Fenway.  Her delivery goes down like a mint julep but has the blasting power of Southern Comfort, neat.  You can feel the heat and feel on the verge of breaking out into a sweat just from her slow work with a hand fan.  The troubled youth in her charge, Donald, is portrayed with a brooding malaise by Andrew Syropolous, who allows his performance to smolder and grow, so that the sad climax of the play is completely believable.  Dickens Warfield again offers a bright spot of comedy as the world-weary maid, Anna. 

The first play after intermission, "And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens," is the most mature of the four, with only occasional repeats of whole sections of dialogue, which plague the other three, but still contrives to get the title spoken awkwardly by a character.  All four plays have that annoying trait.  Candy, first as a man, then transformed into a drag queen, is played with ease (probably because this role offers him almost nothing he hasn't done before in better plays) by the always engaging David C. Allen.  Candy has brought home an angry, stoic, and obviously closeted gay-curious man named Karl, played by Greg Freitag.  Freitag really has the goods here – he says more with his eyes and rock hard facial expressions than many actors could.  He alternately stalks and broods over his "prey."  The sexual and violent tensions are thick, and you just know one or both aspects of this relationship will explosively conclude.  The sexual part is handled nicely, but the violent aspect is as poorly staged as any scene in recent memory – it is crucial to the plot, but poorly executed and out of the view of most of the audience.  A third character, an intrusive neighbor is played as an annoying gay stereotype – a swishy, bitchy queen, by Andrew Syropolous, looking totally uncomfortable and rightly so.

The final play, "I Can't Imagine Tomorrow," is a dark comedy dealing with the serious themes of aging and friendship.  Relatively brief, we are party to one in what is apparently a series of similar meetings between two aging men.  It is clear they are both close to the end, with one precariously teetering on the edge.  What makes this work so well is the magnificent chemistry and natural familiarity between actors Omar Pulliam and Ralph Piersanti. 

The production looks nice, with set design by Fuzz Roark, lighting by Brad J. Ranno and costumes by Suzana Pesa, with details and carefully chose artwork and furniture.  Would that the uncharacteristically uneven direction and the material itself were simply better than they are.  Still, Williams fans and scholars will find plenty here to think about and stew over.  Three out of four ain't bad, either. 

PHOTOS by Amy Jones, courtesy of Spotlighters.  Top to bottom: Harry B. Turner as The Writer; Alex Joseph Barone and Tracy Dye; Janise Whelan and Andrew Syropoulos; and David C. Allen and Greg Freitag.

 

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